MEXICO CITY (AP) – Mexico’s government is ordering closed schools nationwide as the suspected death toll from swine flu climbed to 149.
Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova says only 20 of the deaths have been confirmed to be from swine flu and the government was awaiting tests results on the rest.
He says 1,995 have been hospitalized with serious cases of pneumonia since the first case of swine flu was reported on April 13. The government does not yet know how many were swine flu.
Of those hospitalized, 1,070 have already been released.
Cordova says school at all levels nationwide are suspended until May 6. Schools had already been suspended in Mexico City and five of Mexico’s 32 states.
Japan was lucky in that it dodged the SARS bullet in 2003-but the disease still played hell with getting around Asia that year.
On a brighter note – and if this isn’t proof that every cloud has a silver lining, what is? – a lethal contagion sweeping the world right now will help take everyone’s minds off our planet’s ongoing economic catastrophe and climatic collapse.
Nor will it stop, as John Cole points out, the rapid assessment of blame:
“What are the odds that one could convince greater wingnuttia that pork barrel spending was the cause of the swine flu outbreak? I’m guessing there’s at least a 20% chance of success.”
Express train to 2012-no local stops.
Here is a map of the Swine Flu epidemic to date.